The Mammoths That Tried to Escape the Kingdom of Elrik Khan Catapult Film Fund, which offers non-fiction filmmakers with early stage funding and mentorship, introduced at the moment its 2024 Development Grant recipients. Through its flagship program, the California-based nonprofit will assist launch 15 new initiatives from all over the world, together with tales from China, India, Iran, Mexico, Russia, and throughout the United States. As famous in a press launch, half of the initiatives are by movie groups of coloration and greater than 80% are directed by girls and nonbinary filmmakers. The initiatives had been chosen from a aggressive pool of 900 functions, a document excessive for the group.
Each movie workforce will obtain a grant of $25,000 and devoted advising from the Catapult workforce as they create supplies to unlock vital manufacturing funding. Catapult will proceed to offer help all through every mission’s lifecycle, together with extra funding by way of momentum and consulting grants and immersive mentorship by way of its Rough Cut Retreat partnership with True/False Film Fest. In 2024, Catapult distributed over $500,000 to documentary artists throughout its applications together with practically $100,000 in speedy response funding to grantees in want.
“It has always been central to Catapult’s mission to support talented filmmakers seeking to launch thought-provoking work that elevates and advances cultural dialogue,” stated Megan Gelstein, Catapult Co-Director and Chief Program Officer. “We are in an undetermined era for documentaries, and the state of nonfiction work in the marketplace is fragile. As such, we at Catapult feel it’s urgent to safeguard global independent voices who are so essential to the highest democratic ideals. Each of the films has a distinct approach to storytelling and a powerful cinematic voice — this particular group of creative adventurers will undoubtedly take viewers to new places and we are excited for what comes next.”
Since 2010, Catapult Film Fund’s Development Grant has supported over 200 movie groups with greater than 92% of initiatives happening to completion. Recent movies embody 2024 Sundance Special Prize winner Sugarcane (2021 Development), directed by Julian Brave NoiseCat & Emily Kassie, produced by Emily Kassie & Kellen Quinn, and 2024 Primetime Emmy Award-winner Going To Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Story (2017 Development), directed and produced by Joe Brewster and Michèle Stephenson, produced by Tommy Oliver; and 2024 News & Documentary Emmy winner Eat Your Catfish, co-directed by Noah Amir Arjomand, Adam Isenberg and Senem Tüzen. Catapult is proud to be among the many first supporters of critically-acclaimed documentary movies resembling: Oscar® Award-winner American Factory (2016 Development help), Oscar®-nominated All That Breathes (2019 Development help), and Oscar®-nominated Crip Camp (2016 Development help). The Catapult Development Grant is made potential with help from the Jonathan Logan Family Foundation.
More info on the 2024 initiatives will be discovered under, in addition to on Catapult’s program website.
Selected Grantees
Director/Producer: Jane M. Wagner
Producer: Carrie Weprin
An evening safety guard and his AI chatbot create a web based refuge the place people and machines coexist, free from the tough judgment of the skin world.
Director/Producer/Editor: Cecilia Brown
Director/Producer/Cinematographer: Winslow Crane-Murdoch
A Bird with a Knife explores the 50-year thriller surrounding 1000’s of cattle mutilations throughout the American West. Following a veteran investigator, an Oregon sheriff, and the ranchers whose circumstances they’re working to resolve, this movie is about folklore, religion, and the tales we inform when no absolute fact exists.
Writer/Director: Natalia Almada
Producers: Josh Penn, Esther Robinson
A magical-realist, science-fiction documentary about magnificence and grief. Captions Will Be Needed is filmmaker Natalia Almada’s cinematic response to residing with a uncommon most cancers throughout an period that believes in know-how’s all-powerful energy to reply all questions.
Director: Amanda Micheli
Producer: Serin Marshall
Click & Clack is the story of the Magliozzi brothers, two working-class MIT grads who by accident expanded their ramshackle mechanic store and turned it right into a cultural phenomenon: Car Talk, probably the most profitable leisure present ever on National Public Radio.
Director/Producer: Violet Du Feng
Producers: Joanna Natasegara, Mette Cheng Munthe-Kaas, James Costa
In a rustic the place eligible males vastly outnumber girls, three serial bachelors be a part of an intensive 7-day courting camp led by one in all China’s most sought-after courting coaches, in what could also be their last-ditch effort to search out love.
Director/Producer: Sahra Mani
Producers: Maéva Savinien, Frédéric Corvez, Delphine Maury, Alemberg Ang
In 1984, over two million Afghans fled to Iran to flee the Soviet-Afghan War. Among them, one household launched into a novel journey: trying to find a lacking teenage son. Dream of Grape Gardens follows the intertwined tales of a mom and daughter, every on particular person journeys marked by unstated phrases.
Director: Ora DeKornfeld
Navigating complicated cultural landscapes and high-risk environments, fixers play an important but usually unseen function in world journalism and movie. Rich with detailed observations and stunning humor, FIXERS plunges us into the life and work of those unsung heroes.
Director: Yoruba Richen
Producer: Christalyn Hampton
The movie examines the 1975 groundbreaking case of Joan Little who was one of many first girls in U.S historical past to be acquitted for utilizing lethal drive to withstand sexual assault. Little was a Black incarcerated girl who killed a white guard who was attempting to rape her.
Director: Rohan Ranganathan
Producers: Aman Mann, Shaunak Sen
In the huge, colourful chaos of the Mumbai movie trade, within the midst of overwhelming social and household stress, an ageing actor makes a remaining try to meet his lifelong dream of enjoying an iconic villain.
The Mammoths That Tried to Escape the Kingdom of Elrik Khan
Director/Co-Writer/Producer: Tamara Kotevska
Director of Photography/Co-Writer/Producer: Jean Dakar
In the northernmost a part of the Yakut Tundra, Vladik, a younger Dolgan reindeer herder is at a crossroads when he has to decide to both observe his father’s footsteps by persevering with the normal nomadic way of life or be a part of the fashionable mammoth tusk hunters in quest of the arctic gold.
Director: Alex Pritz
Producer: Will N. Miller
The seek for extraterrestrial intelligence affords a cosmic perspective on humanity’s long-term survival, as instructed by way of three interwoven storylines in Northern California.
Director/Producer: Sharon Liese
Producers: Sasha Alpert, Paul Matyasovsky
A small, family-run newspaper in Kansas is raided by police in an overt try and cease the paper from reporting on their corruption. The raids, ensuing within the demise of the newspaper’s 98-year-old co-owner, acquired worldwide condemnation. A yr later, new info raises questions in regards to the impetus for the raids.
Untitled Alexandra Billings Project
Director/Producer: Nico Opper
Producer: Jude Harris
At 63, Alexandra Billings is one in all only a few transgender performers with a profitable Hollywood profession. A mixed-race girl residing with HIV, she overcame homelessness and dependancy to turn into a trailblazing actress and activist. This daring and kooky documentary follows her newest feat – mounting an unique musical on Broadway.
Directors/Producers: Rintu Thomas, Sushmit Ghosh
Memory and creativeness turn into the playful and poignant autos for a journey about love, loss and legacy.
Untitled Twin Athletes Documentary
Director: Georgina Cammalleri; Producer: Gannesh Rajah
Untitled Twin Athletes Documentary follows the De Jesús sisters, equivalent twin athletes from Puerto Rico, whose audacious swap on the 1984 LA Olympics shattered their lives in a single day. Wishing to rewrite their story, they have to confront their previous and one another.
About Catapult Film Fund
Catapult Film Fund helps nonfiction filmmakers with vital early-stage funding and mentorship to launch distinctive, story-driven, and cinematic movies. Founded in 2010, Catapult has awarded over $5.5 million in direct grants to over 250 movie groups by way of its artist-centered applications together with help for analysis, improvement, and tough reduce. Over 90% of Catapult-supported movies go on to completion. For extra info, go to catapult film fund.org.
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